


Ashes of Souls

by Lady_Vibeke



Series: Let Us Burn [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, star - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Kylo Ren, Hurt/Comfort, Hux is mesmerised, I love these losers so much, Kylo Ren is a Mess, M/M, Protective Armitage Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 06:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13496868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Vibeke/pseuds/Lady_Vibeke
Summary: "Are we sure about this, Ren?" He wanted to know. Needed to know. He didn't want to be the only one jumping in the dark without a clue. "Are we really going to– ""Yes," said Ren at once. No hesitation. No doubt. Not a trace. "I am." He scrutinised Hux closely, looking for signs of remorse. "Are you?"Hux cursed himself. Cursed his own insanity and Ren's wrecked person and the torturing beauty he had seen in that. If this was going to be his undoing, then be it."We'll end up hurting each other. A lot.""I'm sure we will."





	Ashes of Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to Healing Touch.

_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved_  
_In secret, between the shadow and the soul._  
– Pablo Neruda

**X**

How General Hux had come to find Kylo Ren even remotely attractive was a mystery even to his sorry self.

As a person who had always relied on reason, he couldn't simply  _accept_  this as a fact. There must be a scientific explanation.  _There had to be_. Yet, despite his efforts, he hadn't been able to concoct a reasonable theory that could explain how he had ended up here, in Kylo Ren's private quarters, checking up on him with some lame excuse he couldn't even remember, now.

He would have been able to remember, he was sure, if only Ren hadn't opened the door wet and half naked. Hux had brushed past him with an inexplicable warmth surfacing around his neck, and had walked straight to the table in the middle of the room to drop the medical kit he had brought. Ren hadn't asked why Hux hadn't sent a droid to deliver the kit. He never did.

As responsible and mature as he was, Ren still refused to be seen by a doctor. He was stubbornly still looking after his own wounds and the only professional care he had accepted was, occasionally, that of medidroids. So for weeks Hux had been observing Ren strip out of his robes to apply bacta and dressings to his battered body, and slowly – yet consistently – Hux had felt his vision of Ren shift.

They rarely spoke during these moments. Hux wouldn't even know what to say, if there was anything to say at all. It was a tough concept to process: General Hux and Lord Ren growing accustomed to each other's presence, spending time together in the same room not even yelling at each other. There were insults, sure, and bitter, spiteful words, but always pronounced in whispers, low, unwavering voices. There were no more screams. No more anger. Or – there  _was_  anger, but not the kind Hux was used to dealing with. What he had always labelled as hatred had now been replaced by an equally burning and maddening feeling, whose essence was not clear even to Hux himself. Or so he wanted to believe.

In the last few days, he had spent long hours tortured by the inexplicable workings behind this insane attraction, sleepless nights filled with deplorable thoughts he could hardly recollect without feeling deeply ashamed and embarrassed by their unseemly nature. Somehow, Kylo Ren seemed to have recently become the centre of his thinking, haunting his mind day and night, and Hux had yet to decide whether this was more frustrating or more humiliating.

The latter, perhaps.

"You're staring."

Hux prompted a sneer. "You're making a show."

For the past few minutes, just as usual, Ren had been trying to tend to his wounds by himself, and Hux had only been delighted to see him struggle about the bowcaster slash in his side. Ren's movements were extremely clumsy, as if he was too big and too strong to manage such a delicate task. It would have taken smaller hands for that – lighter hands. Hands like Hux's.

 _No_.

No, he shouldn't even think that. It was bad enough that his mouth was watering in front of Ren's gratuitous display of rough masculinity.

It was true, though: Hux  _was_  staring. He had been all along, like hypnotised. He observed the strength of Ren's body painted by the sharp lines of his muscles, solid curves and planes flexing at every movement under the smooth, disfigured skin. Hux mentally mapped every scar and every mole, realising, not without great astonishment, how beautiful the whole of it appeared – flawed and ruined and imperfect, yet undeniably exquisite.

Hux filed such musings away for another moment (or never – never would be great) and cast Ren a lopsided smirk: "Maybe a mirror would help?"

It was a cruel jab. There was no mirror in Ren's room anymore. Simply, one day, soon after Starkiller, Hux had found it gone. He had never inquired about it (why would he?) but a cobweb of nasty cuts on the back of Ren's right hand suggested a plausible scenario.

Ren had never considered himself to be anything worth looking at (hence that stupid bucket of his) and that scar across his face had only increased his self-consciousness. Hux could see it, the way Ren faced away whenever Hux looked him in the eye. The look of a frightened animal fearing to be hurt. There was something Hux wasn't telling him, however: he found Ren disturbingly handsome, and even more so since that scar had marked his face.

Ren, of course, would never know. Hux would rather kill himself than tell him.

"You know," Hux continued, leaning against the wall just a few steps from Ren's distracting nudity. "You wouldn't  _die_  if you let me– "

Ren threw the fresh bandages he'd just crumpled up against the wall right next to Hux's head. "I don't need your help!" He picked up a new set of bandages, sat on a chair and stubbornly proceeded to try again to wrap them around his torso by himself With comically scarce results.

Hux scoffed. "You might want to rephrase that?"

Ren glared through a curtain of wet hair, eyes breath-takingly dark. "I don't  _want_  your help."

The tendons in his neck flexed as he swallowed. Hux ignored the flame this sight ignited below his navel. He let it burn in silence, confined, perfectly aware that if he kept denying its existence it would end up consuming him, at some point.

He picked up the discarded bandages from the floor and tossed them into the bin across the room. A smooth landing.

"Fair enough," he said, utterly unimpressed by Ren's animosity. "Still, I don't think you can pull this off on your own, as much as I'd like to watch you try all night."

Ren ignored him. He usually did, all the time, especially when Hux visited him in his quarters, and Hux had gradually learned that this adamant lack of communication was Ren's way of conveying discomfort.

"Hells. You are impossibly pig-headed!"

"If you're so eager to get your hands on me, General, you have but to ask."

The flame in Hux's belly flared dangerously. It spread throughout his body, filling him with a blinding need he could hardly control.

With a swift movement, Hux grabbed Ren's chin and janked his face up towards himself. "Careful Ren," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Don't play with fire."

They were too close. Ren's body heat invaded Hux's comfort zone, bringing back memories of forbidden touches and forbidden wishes. If Hux hadn't known better, he would have thought Ren was running a fever again. Only recently had he learned that, in fact, Kylo Ren was hot like that all the time: embers in his eyes, fire in his veins. An ever-burning spirit.

Ren tilted his head back to gaze hazily at Hux. It was a shockingly submissive pose – hands locked together, neck exposed – and Hux's hands clenched into fists to keep from shaking. Then Ren said, with a hint of warning: "Look who's talking."

Hux blinked questioningly. He was having a hard time thinking straight. His whole body felt like it was bursting with electricity.

Ren's soft eyes flickered all over Hux's face, taking in every single inch of him as if he was seeing him for the first time. Had his cheeks been so flushed, before?

"It took me years to learn how to contain myself," he said calmly, but somehow managed to make it sound like a threat. "And even now – you know better than I do – sometimes I lose control."

Flashes of savage rage taken out on random targets crossed Hux's mind. Ren's raw, brutal energy exploding in one of those damn tantrums was one of the most terrifying, mesmerising things he had ever witnessed. He didn't want to imagine what that energy could become, if vented through a  _healthier_  outlet.

Then Ren stood up, tall and hot and  _glorious_ , and Hux's knees threatened to buckle.

"You're the one playing with fire," Ren mutterd into Hux's face, his voice a husky caress causing a violent shiver down Hux's spine. "And you're very afraid of getting burned."

The tension in Hux's limbs paralised him on the spot, mercifully forbidding him to do whatever it was he wanted to do to Ren. He wasn't sure: he craved to put his hands on him, that much he k ew, but that could have multiple interpretations.

Why did he suddenly find Ren so attractive? What made all this difference? Ren's appearance hadn't changed – not for the best, at least. Those ugly scars certainly didn't add any grace to the unfortunate oddity of his face. Objectively, there was nothing appealing in Ren's features: nose – too long, uneven; mouth – large and plump, unnaturally red for such a pale complexion; ears – wisely hidden under thick black locks flowing down to the neck. Singularly, none of these sounded remotely pleasant. Then why –  _why_  did stupid Kylo Ren look so alluring to Hux, out of the blue?

"Don't talk to me like you know me."

Ren appeared unaffected by Hux's unnecessarily coarse manners. "I can read the turmoil in your eyes like an open book, and I don't even need to use the Force to do so," he said. The bandages lay on the table, forgotten. All his attention was for Hux, and when he spoke again his voice sounded slightly brittle: "I scare you."

"Oh." Hux was stunned (if almost disappointed) to see how vastly Ren had misinterpreted his body language. The brilliant Jedi prodigy. Hux  _was_  scared, but not in the sense Ren thought. "That is... not remotely accurate."

Ren let out a sceptic chuckle. "You're welcome to prove me wrong," he said, and just stood there, brooding and god-like, waiting. Waiting for Hux to do or say something to confute his point.

Was it sadness, that fleeting shadow ghosting over Ren's face, just for a split second? Something dark and cold had glimmered in his eyes. Something that caused an unjustified pang in Hux's chest.

"Would you  _please_  stop looking at me like that?" he grumbled, a bit more harshly than he had intended.

Ren's big, puppy eyes seemed lost. "Like what?" He had that look again: a helpless animal at the mercy of his hunter.

What a martyr.

Hux took a step forward and stood close enough to Ren to feel his breath upon himself. "Like you still expect me to turn away in disgust or something." He looked straight into his eyes with an indignant frown.

Bewilderment flickered across Ren's face. "I'm not– "

"You are," Hux argued, a vein pulsing in his temple. "And that's simply ridiculous."

The way Ren fixed him told Hux he was being examined – deelpy, down into the dark recesses where he kept his most treasured secrets. Hux didn't even try to shut him out. He wanted Ren to  _see_ , to feel what Hux felt looking at that stupid face of his.

Things. He felt things he didn't want to name.

Ren stared, eyes narrowing in concentration, then he suddenly froze and opened them wide, wincing as if something had stung him, a hint of pink enlighting his cheeks.

"You like me," he said, with the doubtful tone of someone who didn't believe their own words. He sounded so surprised Hux couldn't help feeling sorry for him. "The way I look, I mean."

Their proximity was excruciating. Hux wanted to touch him as badly as he wanted to push him away and yell at him. He had reached a point of physical distress where he couldn't tell anger from arousal, and that was alarmingly dangerous.

"You really enjoy making the most awkward statements, don't you?"

"Is that a yes?"

Hux's nostrils flared. " _You expect me to believe you don't know_ – oh, for kriff's sake!" He ran a hand through his hair, groaning in frustration. Was Ren karking  _blind?_ Hux turned to him with an exasperated sigh: "What more do you need, you dumb idiot? _A public declaration?_ "

Hux felt a sharp tug in his chest. His face crumpled in pain before he even knew, and only after a moment he became aware of the foreigness of this feeling. It was Ren. Ren's aching soul.

All of a sudden Hux saw it –  _perceived it_ – Ren's soul – an abyss of darkness consumed by fire and ice, devoured by its own void. There was raw, raging grief everywhere, screaming for numbness, begging for peace – unanswered.

Hux emerged from this vision with needles and pins in his lungs and a knot tightening in his throat. He had to clutch to the table to regain his balance, head full of echoes of nightmares and rotting dreams, denied love.

"Was that – " His voice, a mere feeble quiver, caught in his chocking breath. " _Is that how you feel all the time?_ "

Ren gave him a slow, careful nod, lower lip pursing to conceal the slight trembling.

A wave of nausea punched Hux in the stomach.

How did Ren  _live_  with that? How had he even made it this far with such devastation inside?

It was all… crushed. Compromised. Like a shattered glass, awkwardly held together by tape and glue but not really  _whole_. Ren's soul was ruins and ashes, a glacier devoured by flames, broken mind and broken heart in a cage of broken bones. Fragments. Pieces. Shards. Bleeding.  _Bleeding_.

How much of himself had Ren lost along the way? How much of him had been  _stolen_?

Hux reached out to him, tentatively, gently, not wanting to scare the wounded animal away. His hand stopped just before touching Ren's face, waiting for him to shy away.

He didn't.

Something inside Hux softened and slowly melted away. There was a warmth in him he didn't know, couldn't place.

"May I…?"

Ren stared. He stared for so long and so intensely that Hux felt violated by those piercing eyes, now too dark to find any colour in them. Then he pliantly closed his eyes. "Please."

It was almost too much – Ren offering himself to Hux, accepting his gesture with blind, unconditional trust, allowing Hux to dispose of him as he pleased. And – oh, there were a number of things Hux was longing to do to Ren. Naughty things. Dirty things. But also kind things, because that was what Ren vitally needed and deserved: kindness. For once in his lifetime, just that. Just kindness. And Hux (kark, what  _folly_  had taken over him?) had no intention whatsoever to betray Ren's trust.

His fingers moved to trace the length of the scar across Ren's face, forehead to jaw, brushing away a few strands of wet hair along the way. And Ren, placid and unguarded, basked under those ministrations, transfixed into Hux's heated gaze, and both of them wondered how much they didn't know about this side of being human.

The beauty of this picture – of Ren completely captivated by Hux's attention – was above any other Hux had ever laid sight upon. He had tried to overpower Ren for so long that he had failed to notice that power wasn't the issue, here: Ren wasn't invincibile. He was just too busy fighting himself to worry about other enemies.

"You are such an idiot," Hux mumbled under his breath, tracing his fingertips downwards, following Ren's sharp jawline. He stayed away from those enticing lips. Stars knew what might happen if he gave in to the temptation of touching them.

Ren looked at Hux from beneath thick, black lashes, lips slightly parted, obscenely handsome with Hux's hand still entangled in his tousled hair. "Do you…" he began, but then seemed to change his mind: "Is there some…  _feeling_  behind all of this, General?"

If there was any mockery in Ren's tone, Hux couldn't detect it. He could however perfectly see how the term  _feeling_  had been placed there to edulcorate a concept Hux didn't even want to consider, let alone _acknowledge._  Maybe it hit a little too close to home.

 _I'm not dealing with this_ , he told himself angrily, stepping back from Ren as if he had been insulted. This wasn't right. Ren had no right to bring up  _feelings_.

And then, before he even realised it, Hux also thought:  _I'm not discussing love with Kylo kriffing Ren_.

He froze, startled by his own idiocy.

 _Love?_ What was wrong with him? No one had mentioned  _love_.

"Now," he scoffed indignantly, trying to bury his inner dismay. "Let us not get carried away. Certain terms are not to be so casually misused. What does that have to do with any of this?"

"Define  _this_."

"My point, exactly." Hux spread an arm out, shrugging. "What are we even doing, Ren?"

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking." Genuine perplexity tinged Ren's words. He was also as clueless as Hux, and maybe just as intrigued.

"Well, don't ask me," Hux retorted dryly. "I don't know a damn thing about…" He grimaced, gesturing towards Ren's general direction. " _Feelings_."

"Neither do I."

Hux arched his brows, folding his arms as he propped against the wall with a shoulder, a little snicker stretching his lips. "Sounds like we have some common ground to start with, after all."

He realised it sounded awfully like a declaration of some sort only when he caught Ren's stunned reaction. Had he just implied he wanted to start  _something_  with Ren? How preposterous.

He should only want to  _finish_  Ren. That was all he ever wanted, after all. Endings, not beginnings. But everything had turned upside down, apparently, and, yes, he still wanted to  _put his hands on Ren_ , but, oh, how different it was, now.

"Remember: I can sense your thoughts."

Hux stuck his chin up, indignated by Ren's utter lack of discretion. "Have you ever considered it might be rude to intrude into people's heads?"

"It's not intruding if the person in question is blasting their thoughts out like an overexcited child. I'd call that overhearing, if anything."

"Stay out of my mind."

"I'm in your mind because  _you_  put me there."

Hux gritted his teeth. Ren had a point, obviously. Hux  _was_  thinking of him, but it wasn't like he meant to. As much as he hated it, it was beyond his control.

He considered the moment – his body burning with hunger, Ren looking at him with an unspoken question in his eyes – and wondered how much more his world could change if he just gave in to that single need driving him closer to Ren and his irresistible warmth.

Ren wanted it. It was written all over his face, woven into the tension in his body. Why a man like Ren would be even mildly interested in someone like Hux, Hux could not fathom. But then again, it also worked the other way around. But for once – this once… just this once – Hux decided he didn't need a scientific explanation. Or any, for that matter. He knew what he wanted, and if Ren wanted that, too, who was he to deny this to them both?

Hesitantly, Hux's lips moved towards Ren's, lingering just a breath away before he hoarsely asked: "Tell me you're okay with this."

It wasn't a question, but it wasn't an order either, and there was an embarrassing  _please_  Hux had omitted, though he was sure Ren had heard it anyway.

Ren gazed at him through hooded eyes. A hot shiver crawled up Hux's spine, pooling at the nape of his neck and just under his navel. It spread dangerously and washed over him, leaving him haunted by an unbearable thirst. It took Hux a while to realise that this crushing yearning was not, in fact, his own.

 _Ren_.

_Stupid Ren._

_I hate you. I_ hate _you._

An amused scoff echoed in his mind: _No, you don't_.

Hux fell back to reality. He gasped for air, desperate to  _feel_.

_Out of my head, Ren!_

He was panting hard, his pulse spiking. He felt light-headed, floating into nothingness. He needed grounding. Reassurance. He needed something.  _Something_. Something he couldn't –  _wouldn't_  name.

"What are you doing to me?" he hissed, angry and slightly scared.

Finally –  _finally_  – Ren leant forward to rest his forehead against Hux's, and the thirst flared like wild fire from skin meeting skin. Enraptured by this unexpected twist, Hux stroked Ren's cheekbone with his thumb – reverently, a butterfly caress – and immediately received a very neat projection of the feeling his calloused fingertips against Ren's tender cheek.

Ren was… overwhelmed. Inside, he was seething with mixed feelings – bliss, shock, curiosity, pleasure, relief…

 _Terror_.

There was so much terror. So much feral fear. Hux was suddenly afraid he might do the wrong thing –  _harm him_ , when he was already so torn inside.

Hux had been stupid for wanting to murder Ren in the first place. The poor thing was already crippled beyond repair. And Hux – oh, Hux knew everything of emotionally crippled fools.

"I don't know how to do this, Ren," he whispered, almost apologetically, his heart aching as Ren leant cautiously into his palm. "Any of this.

 _I hate not to know what I'm doing,_  he added to himself, terrified of this  _something_  he was feeling and couldn't chase away. He was trapped, and the worst of it was that he set this trap himself, the very moment he decided to come here. To come to Ren.

Hux held his breath when a comforting touch reached out to soothe his mind right where panic was nibbling at it. It brought silent comfort, calming Hux just enough for him to realise the touch had not been just in his mind: Ren's hand had cupped Hux's, fingertips brushing against his knuckles ever so gently.

It was terribly wrong and terribly right – Ren, and half of his clothes on the floor, his wounds biting ugly marks into his flesh, eyes black and glistening like embers. Burning.  _Burning_.

Ren's eyelids fluttered closed. Contentedly, perhaps. "I don't remember this feeling." His tone tasted like unshed tears, stuck in the throat like poisonous thorns. "My mother used to do this when I was a child – I think I remember that. But the feeling of it… that I've forgotten. It has never felt real." His eyes opened, clouded by a veil of melancholic haze. Hux could see it – the struggle to discern, memory or fantasy. Loved or unloved. "I doubt it ever was. I think I just dreamed that when I felt most lonely."

In Hux's mind, a flicker of remembrance. Not his own, but all too familiar – a child and a room, both cold and empty, both dark, neglected and abandoned. Too much helplessness. Too much loneliness.

A surge of blinding fury gushed the air out of Hux's lungs. His hand tensed for a split second over Ren's soft face, then, as mad fondness took over the fury, he slipped his fingers deeper into Ren's hair, letting them curl along his scalp.

 _Be tender_ , he kept repeating in his mind.  _Don't hurt him. Don't scare him away._

Hux couldn't remember ever feeling protective towards anyone. Or anything, as a matter of fact. The most important lesson his father had taught him was that  _caring_  made you weak and vulnerable, and all that should matter to a man was himself. Nothing else. No one else.

That was the moment little Armitage had learned that his father didn't give a damn about him. That was the moment the small, scrawny boy had decided he would never care for anyone, since it was never worth it.  _Never_.

And now here he was.  _Here he was._

What a disappointment.

And he must really be crazy to be so concerned about someone whose sight he notoriously could barely stand. The man he hated most. The mighty and precious Lord Ren, body and soul now bared in front of him, human and vulnerable and infuriatingly  _magnificent_.

Hux stroked the velvety skin, gulped down a moan as Ren sighed blissfully under his palm, completely and willingly at his mercy. Once again, Hux could kill him right there, and Ren wouldn't be able to fight for himself. Once again, however, all Hux truly wanted was the exact opposite of that.

"Is this like you dreamed it was?"

"No." Like a loving cat, Ren brushed his face into Hux's hand, making him whimper, and not unpleasantly, when his lips skimmed the sensitive spot on the inside of his wrist. "But, to be honest, I had no idea what I was dreaming about."

At this, Hux suddenly understood why someone powerful like Kylo Ren would hide behind a mask: it wasn't a matter of aesthetic, as Hux had believed for so long, but a much more significant issue, and realising that roused a strange guilt in Hux. He felt like Ren had just stripped himself naked in front of him, proving a trust in Hux's regard that Hux himself would have never expected – nor he believed he deserved.

 _And yet_  – and yet here they were, looking at each other with the same uncertainty, the same insecurity resonating between them. And Ren – the loveless child, the wounded beast – was nearly too beautiful to look at, scars and darkness and everything.

Hux held his breath. There was something painfully innocent in this man. Something pure and fragile that, once discovered, it was impossible to ignore – or forget. A simple glimpse into him had been enough to crumble down everything Hux had always been sure of, leaving chaos and confusion in its wake.

He let out a throaty sigh as his thumb dared a slow movement to Ren's lower lip, tracing its outline as though there was something about it he needed to understand. But that was not untrue: there was a whole lot of Ren he needed –  _wanted_  to understand, and maybe it wasn't only an emotional craving.

"Forgive me. I'm being inappropriate."

"Not at all, General." Ren… smiled? The fondest, saddest smile Hux had ever seen. And he wanted to see it again, over and over – and see it shift,  _make_  it shift, until all sadness was erased. "You're unfamiliar with this as much as I am, aren't you?"

"I don't – I've never..." Hux made to drop his hand, but was stopped by Ren's own hand keeping it where it was.

"Please, don't. It's... pleasant."

Hux's forehead creased uneasily. "I'm not familiar with pleasant, either."

"Trust me, I could tell."

There.  _There_. Ren just had to be his old, obnoxious self and ruin it all, didn't he?

"You just can't leave your childish mockery out of our conversations, can you?" snapped Hux, jerking his hand away from Ren's soft hair. He should have known. How could Ren be  _decent_ , all of a sudden?

But Ren didn't seem bothered by Hux's outburst. "Why do you always think it's mockery when I'm just making a matter-of-fact statement?" he asked, his expression the living portrait of blamelessness. "Life wasn't any kinder to you than it was to me.  _Pleasant_  is a concept both of us have barely known. I can see through your stately façade: you're not so different from me. Strip us of our black robes and pompous titles, and we're just…" Ren's eyebrows knit together in a sorrowful frown. "Just lonely kids who were rejected by their noble families."

Despite Ren's words being the sheer, objective truth, it hurt to hear them spoken out loud, and so carelessly.

"Leave my family out of this. You have no right– "

"I didn't mean to offend you," said Ren, evidently confused by Hux's reaction. Or overreaction, Hux had to concede.

"Your tact needs a lot of refining," he retorted, jabbing Ren's massive chest with a finger without even thinking. He marveled at how  _solid_  Ren was. It was like trying to press into marble.

"It probably does."

"You're right, though: I was a lonely child. My mother abandoned me, and as to my father… I never mattered much to him. Ours wasn't exactly a home full of love."

"Neither was mine." Ren's throat bobbed. He looked like a prince from some decadent romantic poem: majestic and charming, with tragedy in his blood. "All I ever knew of love left nothing but scars."

That last part hurt Hux in a way he hadn't believed possible. He knew absolutely nothing about love. Something welled up in his throat, a painful knot that made it hard to swallow. He blinked, refusing to acknowledge the subtle wetness stinging at the corners of his eyes. He knew nothing about love, he firmly repeated to himself while looking at Ren's miserable face.

His heart missed a beat.

He pretended not to notice.

"Forgive me," said Ren, misunderstanding the shadow that had descended upon Hux's face. "You haven't been any more fortunate than I."

What was that? Why was Ren being so courteous? Hux wasn't used to it and  _didn't_  want to get used to it. He was walking on thin ice, there: he could accept wanting to slam Ren into a wall and ravish him out of crude lust. He could also accept an understandable sense of connection due to the several parallelisms in their lives. But  _this_. He  _refused_  to feel this…  _this_ …

"Don't you dare pity me," he warned, bitter and resentful. "I don't need your karking compassion."

"You are wrong, General, if you think I'm  _offering_  you any of that. And never mistake sympathy for pity."

"What is the bloody difference?"

"That I  _understand_  how you feel." Ren palmed Hux's breastbone, pushing lightly. "This furious hunger inside you. It's been consuming you since forever. It is what happens to starving things: sooner or later they start eating themselves."

Hux felt his whole body stir under that touch. It scared him. It scared him because he didn't want it to end. "You still don't know me, Ren."

And Ren glowered fiercely: "Then let me in.  _Let me know you._ "

How dare he?  _How dare he?_ With what right–

"As if you needed to ask for my darn  _permission_  to break into my head and rummage into it!"

"And yet here I am,  _asking_."

Ren had let him in. He had let Hux see the damaged soul beneath the mask, and  _that_  was what had made the difference.  _That_  had been Hux's ruin. The game changer.

And now – now it was too late. Hux had crossed a line he was never supposed to cross. Something had cracked. Something had awakened.

"Why do I care so much about you, all of a sudden?" It was a rhetorical question, addressed to no one on particular except Hux himself, who couldn't conceive such an abrupt change of heart. But Ren gazed at him – doubtful, hopeful.

"You do?"

"For kriff's sake, Ren, do you want me to write it down for you?"

A corner of Ren's mouth twitched timidly.

Hux’s heart skipped another beat.

This time, he couldn't ignore it.

"Are we sure about this, Ren?" He wanted to know.  _Needed_  to know. He didn't want to be the only one jumping in the dark without a clue. "Are we really going to– "

"Yes," said Ren at once. No hesitation. No doubt. Not a trace. "I am." He scrutinised Hux closely, looking for signs of remorse. "Are you?"

Hux cursed himself. Cursed his own insanity and Ren's wrecked person and the torturing beauty he had seen in that. If this was going to be his undoing, then be it.

"We'll end up hurting each other. A lot."

"I'm sure we will."

"That's all we know. All we have."

Ren's arms sloppily folded around Hux's waist. Hux felt them, large and possessive, on the small of his back.

"That's the trouble with people like us, isn't it?" Ren murmured huskily. "We're really alive only when we hurt. Only when we burn."

Hux ghosted his hands up Ren's torso, savoring every inch of taut muscles, mouth unbearably dry. "We're not supernovae." He brushed Ren's pectorals, his collarbone, the sides of his neck, and there he stopped to look him in the eye. "We can burn forever, if we like. And it doesn't  _have_  to hurt."

Ren's nails dug into Hux's back. " _We_?"

" _We_ ," Hux confirmed, then rolled his eyes dramatically at Ren's unrelenting disbelief. "Do you  _really_  want me to write it down?"

A soft smirk brightened Ren's face. Hux's lips locked upon it before he could even reply. Finally.  _Finally_.

 _I'll write it down, if I must_ , he projected to Ren while gracelessly dragging him closer to himself.  _I'll carve it into you_.  _I'll make it hurt, if that makes you listen_. He kissed him, hard and hungry and  _angry_ , until they were both panting and breathless and dizzy from arousal.  _I'll bite it into your marred skin to never let you forget._

Then Hux shoved Ren against the wall and clamped his jaw between his fingers, a ferocious passion darkening his eyes as he kissed him again, and again, and again.

 _But it doesn't have to hurt_ , Hux whispered into Ren's spinning thoughts.  _Not all the time._

Ren's head fell back, his chest heaving, eyes frantically seeking for Hux's.  _Not all the time_ , he agreed, the only coherent spark in a spiral of madness.

 _Not all the time_ , Hux promised. They knew nothing of love, but it was a start. They could learn. If they didn't kill each other first.

They could  _learn_.

So they kissed. They touched. They bit. They clawed. Tongues and teeth and nails. Searching. Wanting.  _Needing_. Clinging to each other. Burning like all stars burned.

Monsters of dying light.

Ashes of souls.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It took me forever to finish this and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Forgive any typo, I always proof-read but sometimes it takes a while before I can see some mistakes. English is not my native language.  
> Thank you in adavance to everyone who will give a minute of their time to leave a review. You're the reason why fanfiction writers keep writing.


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